The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart

In 2004, journalist Bill Bishop coined the term "the big sort". Armed with startling new demographic data, he made national news in a series of articles showing how Americans have been sorting themselves into alarmingly homogeneous communities - not by region or by state but by city and even neighborhood. Over the past three decades, we have been choosing the neighborhoods (and churches and news shows) compatible with our lifestyles and beliefs.

Gangster Warlords

In a ranch south of Texas, the man known as The Executioner dumps 500 body parts in metal barrels. In Brazil's biggest city, a mysterious prisoner orders hit men to gun down 41 police officers and prison guards in two days. In Southern Mexico a meth maker is venerated as a saint while enforcing Old Testament justice on his enemies. A new kind of criminal kingpin has arisen: part CEO, part terrorist, and part rock star, unleashing guerrilla attacks, strong-arming governments, and taking over much of the world's trade in narcotics, guns, and humans.

Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel

What drug lords learned from big business. How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the $300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.

Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio

Nemesis is the story of an ordinary man who became the king of the largest slum in Rio, the head of a drug cartel, and perhaps Brazil's most wanted criminal. It's a gripping tale of gold hunters and evangelical pastors, bent police and rich-kid addicts, quixotic politicians and drug lords with math degrees. Traversing through rain forests and high-security prisons, filthy slums and glittering shopping malls, this is also the story of how change came to Brazil.

El Narco: The Bloody Rise of Mexican Drug Cartels

The world has watched stunned at the bloodshed in Mexico. Thirty thousand murdered since 2006; police chiefs shot within hours of taking office; mass graves comparable to those of civil wars; car bombs shattering storefronts; headless corpses heaped in town squares. The United States throws Black Hawk helicopters and drug agents at the problem. But in secret, Washington is confused and divided about what to do. "Who are these mysterious figures tearing Mexico apart?" they wonder.

Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire lasted 1,000 years, far longer than ancient Rome. Yet this formidable dominion never inspired the awe of its predecessor. Voltaire quipped that it was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. Yet as Peter H. Wilson shows, the Holy Roman Empire tells a millennial story of Europe better than the histories of individual nation-states.

Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography

Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography is an intimate look at the day-to-day dealings of a drug kingpin in the heart of the ghetto. It's also the story of a boy born in poverty in Texas who grew up in a single-parent household in the heart of South Central, who was pushed through the school system each year and came out illiterate. His options were few, and he turned to drug dealing. This untold autobiography is not only personal, but also historical in its implications.

The Last Good Heist: The Inside Story of the Biggest Single Payday in the Criminal History of the Northeast

On August 14, 1975, eight daring thieves ransacked 148 massive safe-deposit boxes at a secret bank used by organized crime, La Cosa Nostra, and its associates in Providence, Rhode Island. The crooks fled with duffel bags crammed full of cash, gold, silver, stamps, coins, jewels, and high-end jewelry. The true value of the loot has always been kept secret, partly because it was ill-gotten to begin with, and partly because there was plenty of incentive to keep its true worth out of the limelight.

American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road

In 2011, a 26-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine website hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything - drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons - free of the government's watchful eye. It wasn't long before the media got wind of the new website where anyone - not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers - could buy and sell contraband detection-free.

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth

The trade in oil, gas, gems, metals, and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa. During the years when Brazil, India, China, and the other "emerging markets" have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 percent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 percent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent.

A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War”

The term Mexican Drug War misleads. It implies that the ongoing bloodbath, which has now killed well over 100,000 people, is an internal Mexican affair. But this diverts attention from the US role in creating and sustaining the carnage. It's not just that Americans buy drugs from and sell weapons to Mexico's murderous cartels. It's that ever since the US prohibited the use and sale of drugs in the early 1900s, it has pressured Mexico into acting as its border enforcer - with increasingly deadly consequences.

The Panama Papers: How the World's Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money

Late one evening investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer receives an anonymous message offering him access to secret data. Through encrypted channels he then receives documents showing a mysterious bank transfer for $500 million in gold. This is just the beginning. Obermayer and fellow Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier find themselves immersed in a secret world where complex networks of shell companies help to hide people who don't want to be found.

Why were no bankers put in prison after the financial crisis of 2008? Why do CEOs seem to commit wrongdoing with impunity? The problem goes beyond banks deemed "too big to fail" to almost every large corporation in America - to pharmaceutical companies and auto manufacturers and beyond. The Chickenshit Club - an inside reference to prosecutors too scared of failure and too daunted by legal impediments to do their jobs - explains why.

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency

From the reporter who was there at the very beginning comes the revealing inside story of the partnership between Steve Bannon and Donald Trump - the key to understanding the rise of the alt-right, the fall of Hillary Clinton, and the hidden forces that drove the greatest upset in American political history.

Wolf Boys: Two American Teenagers and Mexico's Most Dangerous Drug Cartel

At first glance Gabriel Cardona is the poster-boy American teenager: great athlete, bright, handsome, and charismatic. But the streets of his border town of Laredo, Texas, are poor and dangerous, and it isn't long before Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of the Zetas, a drug cartel with roots in the Mexican military. His younger friend, Bart, as well as others from Gabriel's childhood join him in working for the Zetas, boosting cars and smuggling drugs, eventually catching the eye of the cartel's leadership.

The Pursuit of Power: Europe: 1815-1914

Richard J. Evans's gripping narrative ranges across a century of social and national conflicts, from the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 to the unification of both Germany and Italy, from the Russo-Turkish wars to the Balkan upheavals that brought this era of relative peace and growing prosperity to an end. The first single-volume history of the century, this comprehensive and sweeping account gives the listener a magnificently human picture of Europe in the age when it dominated the rest of the globe.

The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld

In this important and revealing book, Jamie Bartlett takes us deep into the digital underworld and presents an extraordinary look at the Internet we don't know. Beginning with the rise of the Internet and the conflicts and battles that defined its early years, Bartlett reports on trolls, pornographers, drug dealers, hackers, political extremists, Bitcoin programmers, and vigilantes - and puts a human face on those who have many reasons to stay anonymous.

Scores: How I Opened the Hottest Strip Club in New York City, Was Extorted out of Millions by the Gambino Family, and Became One of the Most Successful Mafia Informants in FBI History

Meet Michael Blutrich, mild-mannered New York lawyer and founder of Scores, the hottest strip club in New York City history, funded by the proceeds of an insurance embezzlement scheme. All Blutrich wanted was to lay low, make the club a success, and put his criminal acts behind him. But the Mafia got involved, and soon the FBI came knocking. Scores became wildly popular, in part thanks to Blutrich's ability to successfully bend the rules of adult entertainment. Unfortunately for Blutrich, it would all soon implode.

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State

In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security....

Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?

War with China is much more likely than anyone thinks. When Athens went to war with Sparta some 2,500 years ago, the Greek historian Thucydides identified one simple cause: A rising power threatened to displace a ruling one. As the eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison explains, in the past 500 years, great powers have found themselves in "Thucydides's Trap" 16 times. In 12 of the 16, the results have been catastrophic.

Major revelations about the US government's drone program - best-selling author Jeremy Scahill and his colleagues at the investigative website The Intercept expose stunning new details about America's secret assassination policy.

A Very Expensive Poison: The Assassination of Alexander Litvinenko and Putin's War with the West

On November 1, 2006, journalist and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London. He died 22 days later. The cause of death? Polonium - a rare, lethal, and highly radioactive substance. Here Luke Harding unspools a real-life political assassination story complete with KGB, CIA, MI6, and Russian mobsters.

Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System

A groundbreaking major best seller in Italy, Gomorrah is Roberto Saviano's gripping nonfiction account of the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network with a large international reach and stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs, and toxic-waste disposal. Known by insiders as "the System," the Camorra affects cities and villages along the Neapolitan coast

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World

Maps have a mysterious hold over us. Whether ancient, crumbling parchments or generated by Google, maps tell us things we want to know, not only about our current location or where we are going but about the world in general. And yet, when it comes to geo-politics, much of what we are told is generated by analysts and other experts who have neglected to refer to a map of the place in question.

Publisher's Summary

Like many other things, organized crime has been globalized. In McMafia, Misha Glenny discusses, among other groups, the Russian mafia, Colombian drug cartels, and Chinese labor smugglers, explaining how organized crime exploits the developing world's poverty, as well as new technologies. He makes clear that global crime and terrorism are rooted in the West's material affluence.

What the Critics Say

"Former BBC World correspondent Glenny presents a riveting and chilling journey through the myriad criminal syndicates flourishing in our increasingly globalized world....Readers yearning for a deeper understanding of the real-life, international counterparts to The Sopranos need look no further than Glenny's engrossing study." (Publishers Weekly)

Misha Glenny, in McMAfia, provides a general overview of the rise of organized crime over the past twenty years. She covers every point of the globe, inserting historical background, economic context, and sociological insights. The book will be an eye opener to those who have yet to be introduced to the dark side as Glenny presents it. The book is well written, very informative and aptly read by John Lee.

Other books available through Audible which I have heard and which flesh out topics covered by Glenny might be of additional interest.

The Informant by Kurt Eichewald - an abridgement telling the story of one person's experience as a whistle blower and the ADM price fixing scandle.

Ivory Ghosts - The story of the ivory trade historically and in contemporary context.

Snakehead - the smuggling of undocumented native Chinese from Fujian province into New York city in the 1980s and 1990s.

Havana Nocturne - English's tale of the mob in pre-Castro Cuba.

Gomorrah - Saviano's gripping account of Naples and the rule of the Cammora crime network. Don't miss this one.

Did you know that organized crime is responsible for an estimated 15 to 20% of the world GDP (counting tax evasion)? Or that narcotics accounts for about 70% of criminal profits, with energy, guns, prostitution, and gambling making up the bulk of the rest? I didn't know any of this - and I'm not sure I'll be able to think about "the economy" ever again in the same way. Written by a journalist, but with an insiders perspective and a novelists sense of character and pacing, McMafia is one of the best books I read in 2008.

This is a well-written, exhaustively-reported book that takes you in-depth to all parts of global organized crime. I found the section on the Balkans and Russia to be particularly enlightening, not just about the mafia but also in how Glenny explains the overall history of these regions through the lens of lawlessness. I feel like I finally understand what a Russian oligarch actually is.

If anything, the book gets a bit dull towards the end due to the repetiveness of each national history. The same story seems to unfold everywhere, but I only really got bored in the book's final sections.

This book vaguely reminded me of Dope, Inc. in terms of the strong focus on telling a story rather than a litany of facts.

Have you listened to any of John Lee’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not, but he is perhaps the best I've heard so will be sure to look for other works by him.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Organized crime, coming soon to a town near you.

Any additional comments?

Misha Glenny is an effortlessly brilliant author. Her spectacular phrasing and word choice keep the narrative both beautiful and tight, but she never lets her prose get in the way of the people, places, and events she's describing. She structured this book well, and John Lee's narration is world class.

So much crime, so much corruption. Author puts all this mayhem into context -- globalization, international and domestic politics. Not sure if Misha Glenny writes for The Economist but it's that style.

A brilliant book by a brilliant writer. He tackles an extremely important subject and brings to light how the globalization of criminal enterprise may affect the rule of law everywhere. Very well written and is a must read.

It started off as an impressive investigative work. Reader's accent adds personality to characters and author's interviews and personal accounts are quite interesting. However, the second part of the unabridged audiobook ends up on a seemingly irrelevant rant about the United States government being corrupt, incompetent, racist and outright combative towards other countries and their treatment of drug offenses. <br/><br/>While I disagree, I think the author is more than entitled to express his views about the United States and any of its policies that he takes issue with, but not in a book about organized crime (Unless it directly relates to the material, which in this case, it did not). <br/><br/>After spending 2 credits and being very excited about listening to this piece, I found myself annoyed at the fact that 1 of those credits was entirely wasted. <br/><br/>Another reviewer suggested some other organized crime audiobooks which I will be purchasing, I suggest you do the same and pick up a cheap copy of this book on amazon so you can stop reading when all the nonsense starts and only spend a fraction of what I spent.

Would you ever listen to anything by Misha Glenny again?

No

What about John Lee’s performance did you like?

He added great character to the many different personalities explored.

I thought this would be a great way to understand global politics. Instead it is chock full of characters and places that are not explained in a simply way. Perhaps I am not intelligent enough to follow this seemingly endless unwinding of globalization since the fall of the Berlin wall. John Lee is a great narrator,but the topic is too depressing and confusing to the lay person to bring out his brilliance. I gave up at chapter 4 and asked for a refund. Give this one a pass;unless you are already steeped in global politics thoroughly.